It is easy to discover why Walt Whitman is no prophet in his own country. The Americans are intensely conservative, and they like their fashions, their religion, their poetry to be as proper as possible and on lines of general assent. There are a few enthusiasts for Whitman here, as there are with us: but ours is a growing number, and I question if there is much increase in the States.

His books do not sell in sufficient numbers to yield him an income to live upon, and it is a sad reflection, as one sees this fine old man so paralysed that he has a difficulty in walking, to think he has to exist by the generous help of friends mostly abroad. He is incapable of doing anything to make a popular success, and he pays that penalty of neglect which has always been borne by such devoted souls.

It is satisfactory to find, however, that there is no complaining, no whining, but a dignified cheerfulness that is absent in the too-many-millioned American. I had to say to Whitman that at last I could find a little rest in body and mind while in his presence in his homely cottage. There is no mistaking the keen interest he takes in you and those you speak of, but you are conscious that he is possessing his soul in peace, and there is a sort of aloofness about him that is as rare as it is delightful out here.

The little room at Camden, New Jersey, was in a litter of newspapers, magazines and books. It had not yet got to the unendurable point, which I was assured came now and then, and resulted in a clearing-up. He was deeply engaged, with his feet at the stove, in Bowden's Life with Shelley. He keenly enjoyed the book, he told me, and was anxious to know what we thought of it in England. He was glad, too, to hear of the Shelley Society and its work.

I was soon at home, and we talked about all sorts of things, big and little, for a couple of hours. I was sorry to hear that there was no pension awarded for his services in the war. There was no tone of complaint or dissatisfaction in his words as he spoke of this, but a cheerful acquiescence. He had heard from Tennyson too, who wished him to come to England. This is not possible, for although the old man looks hale and hearty, he can go but very short distances on his own.

The night before I saw him, he had been reading his lecture on Lincoln at Camden, and had got about with difficulty. The week after, he was invited to give the lecture in New York, which seems as if the Americans were awakening to the fact that they have at least a very remarkable prose writer among them, whatever they may think of his poetry.